


Coming Together

by kumatt



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Ass Play, Implied Torture, Licking, M/M, Nipple Play, Oral Sex, POV First Person, POV Keith (Voltron), Post-Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 07:57:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19902394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kumatt/pseuds/kumatt
Summary: You shoulder a lot. I never really saw that before. I felt again, even more, that I loved you, and I put it aside out of habit, like the unobtainable thing that it was.We turned and fought. We saved Shiro and defeated Lotor. I never thought I could hope to have more than that.Keith can’t remember the first time he met Lance, but that hasn’t stopped Lance from leaving an impression. Lance has strutted, clowned, flounced, and bounded into Keith’s heart. It defies all reason, so Keith tries to piece it together, reflecting on all the insane experiences they’ve shared. The forced intimacy. The moments of truth. All the things that brought them together as a married couple.One disastrous wedding night, one stupid mission and one daring rescue later, Keith’s ready to make things right. He’s finished reflecting on the past, and he’s ready to start making a future, starting with the best night of night they’ve ever had.





	Coming Together

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the Voltron NSFW Big Bang, but I lost my artist partner in the wash and the whole thing sort of never went anywhere.
> 
> So, here we are, one year later, and I figured I should finally dust this thing off and share it.

I don’t actually remember the first time I met you. Was that why you were always so mad at me? Probably not.

The first thing I can remember is you showing up when I was trying to save Shiro. That was weird. Who crashes somebody’s rescue attempt? Who does that? Well, I mean, you do. Of course you do. With a smarmy smile and crazy eyes.

I remember stupid adventures in the castle. I remember you almost getting blown out an airlock. It only sank in later, lying in my bunk, how close you were to dying then. I didn’t sleep at all that night. 

And that time when we smashed our lions into the ground because you just had to make it into a competition. God, you drove me nuts.

I also remember you in your swimsuit. That… also drove me nuts.

I remember the fight to retake the castle. You were hurt. I held you. I know you remember that too.

And then there was the time I broke my leg.

Shiro sent us off to check out the rumours of a Galra base. The whole place was overgrown by jungle, and we had to hike through it for days. It smelled of life and mold and rot. We fought the whole way. You kept calling me “Captain Mullet”, and you were obsessed with finding vines to swing on.

When we finally found the base it was abandoned. You were ready to turn around and head back, but no, I had to check it out. Maybe there were records with valuable intel, I said. I was walking along the flat metal roof of the base looking for a way in. I think I was in the middle of scolding you when I walked right over the access hatch. It was impossible to see under the moss and deadfall. The rot had gotten into the structure, so as soon as I put my weight on the hatch, it gave way and I fell through.

I laid there in the dark dank interior of the base. It was strangely quiet, away from the noises of the jungle. I was studying the ceiling and the bright square of green jungle I’d opened in it when your face popped into view. You were so ready to lay into me. It was all over your smirking face. But then you saw my leg and you dropped the usual bullshit.

“Sprained or broken?” you asked.

“Broken,” I said.

You grimaced. “How bad?” You were already climbing down through the hatch.

We figured it out together. You pulled the armor off my leg. You cut away the fabric of my clothes. You let me grab your wrist while you set the bone. You turned the armor pieces into splints and tied them tight with the strips of my pant leg. It hurt more than I wanted to admit, of course. But I was shocked at your care. Caring for others, even someone you just spent hours fighting with… it comes naturally to you.

You carried me back through that jungle. You didn’t complain once, but you did lord it over me for the next month.

What I remember is your hands, gentle on my leg. Your arm around my side while we walked. My arm around your neck. The bruise on your wrist that you never mentioned. The bruise in the shape of my handprint.

* * *

Then we lost Shiro. I lost Shiro. And you believed in me.

I became the Black Paladin, and you stood by me.

I still didn’t know where to put my feelings about you. You’d hassle me, and then you’d have my back. You’d insult me, and then you’d flash one of those smiles. 

I remember when everyone but us caught that space virus. That’s the first time I saw you naked. We’d stuffed everyone in the healing pods and then you got exposed. You had to strip nude and I had to run some Altean antivirus beam on you. I saw you all over. Even that hazmat suit probably didn’t hide how hard I was.

I had to be so rushed. Swipe over arms, around neck, over chest, but then over narrow waist... your ass... your crotch... I don’t think I kept my cool, but I tried, and you never let on. Lance, that was the moment when my eyes were opened. You have the sexiest, most perfect ass of any man.

That night was the first time I ever masturbated to you. I pictured your ass like this crazy ideal of this thing I didn’t know I wanted. I went from zero to I-have-to-have-it in one jerk off session. And when I came you were framed in my mind and I was done for.

Then more craziness happened. Shiro came back. But not really. Not that we knew.

In the middle of all that, I remember going out into space in our armor to test some emergency rescue thing Hunk designed. I think a magnetic field was supposed to pull us back to the castle in an emergency. But it didn’t work. It pulled us to each other instead. We spent five hours magnetically glued to each other, floating outside the castle. You didn’t take it great. But my hand was stuck to your hip, and your face was so close…

After the first hour you’d mostly finished yelling over the comms at Hunk. I switched over to our direct channel so I could talk to you and no one else. I’d noticed something. You were scared.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Seriously?” you put on a show of sarcasm and outrage. But my face was too close to yours. I saw the twitch in your eye.

I waited. Not saying something is usually the most tactful thing I can manage.

“This is literally my nightmare,” you said, finally.

“Hey, you wouldn’t by my first pick for person to get glued to either, ok?” I lied.

“No, I mean, I literally have nightmares about this. Floating in space without a ship,” you looked at me for the first time. “Ever since that time with the airlock.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t tell you about my nightmares. I used to dream about losing all of you. I still do sometimes, even now. With you, it’s usually that airlock. Just like it happened, except you don’t find that handhold, and out you would go, looking at me like you looked at me through our visors just then. Scared and alone and me not helping.

“They’ll have it figured out soon,” I said, looking away. “They’ll get the magnetic field down and then they’ll come scoop us up.”

You nodded, disappointed but accepting. We spent the rest of the time in silence.

I don’t know if that was part of why I left, but it didn’t help. Seeing you hurting and being no help to you at all. And you, no good for me, because of the mess that I was. Mumbling nothing much at you by day, jerking off to the fantasy of you by night.

Leaving gave me more distraction during the day, but it didn’t do anything for my nights. I just couldn’t shake the thought of you.

And while I was gone, I remember the time we met by chance. Stuck in some skirmish on that swamp planet. Everything on that planet was green, but not, like, lush leafy green. Like bog water and pureed olives green. We’d let Team Voltron and The Blades get played into joining opposing sides of some civil war. We’d each been told the other side was taking aid from Lotor’s faction.

I was ready to mow down every Galra that dropped into our trench. But the first one over the wall was you. And when you saw me, you stood up on the wall, laser bolts were flying all around you, and you waved off the attack. And you got shot for your troubles. You got shot saving me, and you were such a stoic ass about it.

My weirdest memory has to be after we were back together, when we met the Mad Emperor. Boy, senility and telepathy do not go great together, huh? You were the one who figured out we were stuck in his dreams. And you figured out we had to act out his memories, and what roles we had to play. It didn’t hurt that you cast yourself as the god emperor. But you cast me as his first husband-to-be, and you seduced me. I mean, whether or not it was an act, you absolutely seduced me. You in your layers of flowing silk robes in that hall with the high arched ceilings and everything glowing gold. You with that beautiful makeup and your lips just like… god! You sweeping me into your arms. We woke just as we kissed, and I wished more than anything that the dream had lasted longer.

I remember thinking about you when I was in the Quantum Abyss. I relived these flashes of my life. My life before I knew you. Meeting boys, making mistakes. Giving up on love. And then those wild moments with you. I felt all those feelings of confused wanting again. They piled on top of each other and I couldn’t ignore them, even as I felt like I’d never been further from you. I felt like I finally knew that I loved you and that it was all too late, lost in space and time.

I remember coming back to the castle after I found my mom. I remember you busting my balls. I remember saving Shiro and becoming the Black Paladin again, and I remember being with you again. You said I’d changed. I spent two more years away from you than you did from me. But you seemed to me to be just as different.

Maybe you just look different through different eyes.

You shoulder a lot. I never really saw that before. I felt again, even more, that I loved you, and I put it aside out of habit, like the unobtainable thing that it was. We turned and fought. We saved Shiro and defeated Lotor. I never thought I could hope to have more than that.

Then, on the trip to Earth, I got sick. Something about the time effects of the Quantum Abyss. My mom only suffered some headaches, but I’m not as strong as her. I lost my memory. My mom took care of me. She was the only person I recognized.

In those early days, when everyone else was a stranger, and all I could remember of Shiro was that he’d tried to kill me, you stayed with me. You told me endless stupid stories about us. The stories I’m remembering now. You taught me all over again how and why I loved you. My memories returned, and I began to hope. And still I didn’t know how you felt about me.

The last big push to Earth was what finally let me show you how I felt.

I’ve never been good at saying what I mean. I always mess it up. But you got to see me, the real me, when we achieved deep synchronization in Voltron. We’d never have tried something so desperate if it hadn’t been necessary to cross the distance to Earth, and I was terrified of what you would see.

We all faced each other, mind to mind, and you met me. You saw my heart, and how I felt about you. And you looked at me, with your damned adorable dumbass face, and said “oh”. And then you smiled at me. You looked at me with that lopsided, dorky, lovable smile, and you said “ok”. And I saw you. The boy lost in the woods. The boy who didn’t know how to be loved. And I showed you how.

And then? We were back on Earth. And everything was upside down. We were aliens in our own home, bringing bad news about the universe. And then we got married. We’d never even been on a date, but we stepped out of our lions and walked across real, actual grass, and you proposed, like it was the easiest thing. You breezy, magical asshole.

I never told you that you were right. I mean, about a lot of things, because come on. But about the wedding. You were right. Cuba was beautiful. It couldn’t have been anywhere else. Even if your family is insane.

I remember the sound of the ocean and the look of the clouds. My stomach was full of butterflies and low voltage buzzing. It was overcast in the morning before the wedding. Shiro and I walked up and down the beach in our suits. We didn’t talk much. I worried about the insanity of the whole thing. How could we get married out of nowhere? How could we get married at all? Shiro has some pretty complicated feelings about commitment, but he loves me and he trusts me. He loves you too, you know. He told me so. He set me straight.

“Do you love him, Keith?” he asked.

I said “Yes.”

“Does he love you?” he asked.

“He does,” I said.

“Do you want to spend the rest of your lives together?” he asked.

“Yes!” I said.

Then he pulled me into a hug.

“Great, that was your dry run. Just say all of that again in, like, an hour.”

I looked up and the clouds were moving on. The sun was coming out. I felt like you must have made a deal with the weather, it was so perfect. I listened to the sound of the ocean and felt my butterflies and my buzzing tingling fingers. I wasn’t nervous. I was excited.

When it was time, Shiro walked me over to the podium. And your dad walked you down from the other side. Our lions stood on one side of us and our friends and family on the other. You never told me what the music was, but it was beautiful. 

I’ve been thinking about that wedding night a lot. I was so stupid in love with you.

Like an idiot I picked you up and carried you over the threshold of our hotel room. Some luxury suite of some luxury hotel that you eye-waggled us into. I thought you might hate that I carried you like a bride, but of course you loved it. What else should I expect from the diva who parlayed his celebrity into a honeymoon suite?

After that, it was just stupid after stupid. Pawing your clothes off your body. Kissing you, with crazy desperation. Like a virgin.

You looked at me with wild eyes. Crazy too. Like a virgin, too.

I tackled you on that huge bed. We rolled around. Wrestling almost. Desperate and crazy and stupider still. Your body felt like electricity. Like perfectly carved ice, but hot hot with life. Twisting and breathing, vital. I couldn’t believe that there you were and I was touching you and under my fingers was your skin and between my hands were your hips.

Like an idiot I was all useless impatient lust. I knew how to love you, but I had no idea how to fuck you.

I tried to give you a blow job. Your rock hard cock was beautiful. I touched it like it was the source of all power in the universe. And I think I gave you a pretty B- blow job. We didn’t know. It was all new and all ecstatic.

I turned you over and you said yes. I grabbed hungry at your ass and you said yes. I showed you the lube and you nodded, and I thought “we’re ready” and I thought “this is it”. I rubbed lube over your hole. I fumbled a condom onto my cock. I lubbed that up too. And then I tried to fuck you. Like a virgin.

And like the virgins we were, it was bad. You yelled. I was hurting you. I shifted around. I tried again. You yelled again. I did something wrong and managed to hurt myself. My mind started spinning. The beautiful stupid dream came crashing down.

We lay side by side and I pulled the soggy condom off my cock. We sat in silence. I thought I must be the dumbest man alive. And you looked over at me with raised eyebrows and that lopsided grin and said “Let’s just jerk off. We can try again tomorrow.”

It was the least romantic thing, but not to me. To me it was the sexiest, sweetest gesture. Making the mess of actual life feel livable. Making my stupid self feel lovable. 

We hugged. I pulled you up against me and tried not to seem desperate.

“Don’t leave me,” I wanted to say. “Don’t notice you can do better.”

But you wrapped your arms around me and your fingers pressed into my back said exactly the same desperate thing. I understood, and I held you even tighter.

I smelled the amazing smell of you on your neck, and obsessed over the little hairs at the base of your hairline. I felt our bellies press together, our chests, our cocks. I held you and you held me, tight like magnets. I unwound my neck from yours and looked at you. Your very familiar face that I was meeting for the first time. Up close I saw the little flashes of worry and caught glimpses of your naked happiness. They flitted across your eyes, your mouth, like secrets you couldn’t keep. So I kissed you. To eat your worries and multiply your joy. And mine.

You pulled away from me. You asked if you could touch me a little. I almost forgot to say yes. You cocked your head quizzically at my chest and then you licked me. I shivered. You licked my nipple and asked if it was good. I didn’t know how to answer you. I just made some confused happy sound and nodded. It sent shivers through me, blew out all my senses and all sense. Yes. Do that.

I touched you in turn, asking, and thrilling in the permission you gave. The tiny signifiers of your real, impossible trust in me. I kissed your neck, drawing your skin tight to my lips. You arched like a drawn bow. I traced kisses down your body. Happy to learn about the inside of your elbow, the swell of your ribs, the wisps of hair leading down from your belly, finding my way back to your cock. I kissed that too. I learned its weird reality and loved it. The colour and shape and texture that was new to me, and essential to you. I wrapped my lips around it. Enjoying each fractional step, each action I took to take you.

You ran your hands over me. You made confused and happy sounds. Then you said “stop”. I stopped. You said it was too much. You were too close. I flopped onto the bed beside you, happy. Anything and all of it was enough. I was constantly satisfied and never needed more. Because we were married, and I knew it and you knew it.

We watched each others’ eyes, reading each others’ mysteries into ourselves, just a little bit.

Then I jerked off, eyes locked on beautiful you. You jerked off looking maddeningly at me. And we came. Like the roof caving in on top of us, revealing the sea of stars beyond. We sighed in easy matrimonial contentment.

We showered together. With jokes and some touching. Some kissing. We dried ourselves. We put on fluffy bathrobes, laid in bed, and talked about the days to come.

* * *

We woke up in those same bathrobes. Your arm draped over me. We’d survived our first night together.

We had that one morning of wedded life. We called down to room service and had breakfast in bed. We argued about which was better, waffles or french toast.

I remember I was thinking about whether I wanted to become a coffee person when the phone rang. You were just ducking into the bathroom to begin your skincare regimen. I remember thinking how much I suddenly loved that.

You came back into the room as I hung up. “I have to go” I said. God, you looked betrayed.

“It’s my mom,” I said. I told you about the call. I knew you couldn’t argue then. I felt like I was cheating, like I was using family against you. Even though it was just the truth. My family needed me.

You sat cross-legged on the bed while I stuffed my things in my bag.

“I’ll come back,” I said as I closed the bag.

“I love you,” I said, pulling it over my shoulder.

“We’re married, remember?” I said, showing you my ring.

You looked at me with that cocked head again and then dismounted the bed in one overly leggy manoeuvre. You marched right up to me, with that puzzled look on your face.

“Of course,” you said. “Of course I love you too. Of course we’re married. Of course you’ll fucking come back.” Your voice warbled, but only a little.

You grabbed me and pulled me into a hug.

“I could tie you to the bed you know,” you said, and hugged me tight. You laughed an unhappy laugh. “But I won’t. Go save your mom. She owes us a wedding gift.”

I was at the open door when you called out to me.

“Hey, when you get back,” you said.

I turned and looked. You were posing on the bed. Your bare ass in the air. I laughed.

“When you get back, you need to take care of this. Come back and fuck my brains out.”

I turned to leave and whacked my face into the door frame. I must have been distracted.

* * *

All we knew for sure was that Krolia was investigating Sendak. Infiltrating his army. That, and we knew she had missed three check-ins. She was all alone, and probably in trouble. The Blades would never risk staging a rescue. But I would. Even if they forbade me. Even if I had to leave your side. 

I learned that with Shiro. To never let go. To cross the universe for your family.

This wasn’t the first time I abandoned you, but this time I knew I was cutting at myself to do it. I’ll never know how to do right by all the people I love, all at once, and I’m sorry.

Before we warped out of Earth orbit, I managed to get Kolivan to give me the codes to The Blades’ pulsar comms system, so that I could give them to you. It felt crazy to give out the codes to their secret message network, and it felt crazy to give you such a thin, faint thread for reaching me.

On the one hand, it’s a system that can deliver an untraceable message to any Blade, basically anywhere, on the other hand, the video messages are only ten seconds long and only delivered when the pulsar network aligns, about once every three weeks.

It hurt my head, retaining the two realities of The Blade of Marmora and Lance Is Your Husband, but I felt like this was proof that it could be done. We bent two alien worlds together and found a tiny compromise between them. I saw how this could work. I just needed to survive, and succeed and not lose the me who married you.

I received your first message while I was still in warp to Krolia’s last known sector. I was maintaining focus. No. I was freaking out and trying not to admit it to myself.

My helmet pinged that I had a coded communique and then there you were, projected into a box on the inside of my visor. 

You fumbled with the video screen on your end before you came into focus. 

“What? Six seconds left?” you brought the camera closer and willed the stress from your features. “Pidge-and-Hunk-are-fighting-about-graviton-something-something-and-Iverson-is-trying-to-make-us-go-teach-at-the-garrison-and…and… shit. Miss you, hubby!”

And then the message was done, and I was back in my ship, by myself.

I had tears in my eyes, but I felt a little of the stress leave me. I thought of you sitting back on whatever beach you were on and it felt like you, and Cuba and Earth had been added back into my universe, and how bad could things get with a universe like that?

I was scouting out a Galra outpost when your second message came. I was lying flat on my stomach. Watching sentries rotate through their watches, waiting for a chance to access a computer console. Then your face popped up.

“I’ve been thinking about when you come back,” you said, staring at the camera with mock intensity. “All the stuff we’ll do. Especially the sex.”

The message ended. I laid there and grinned like an idiot.

I found some intel. I was following the same trail my mom had followed.

I marked my time by the arrival of your messages. So I must have spent three weeks tailing a Galra transport. Their course took us into uncharted space. I kept my energy signature low and cruised in their wake. Then your face appeared on my screen. You locked eyes with me through the camera and ate a banana for ten seconds.

So that was yet another time I jerked off to you. Don’t let it go to your head.

Three weeks later I had intercepted a transmission and was feeling like I was in way over my head. The Galra transport was part of Sendak’s army. The uncharted space, part of a vast territory Sendak held in secret. I had a trace on my mom’s location, but it placed her in Sendak’s fortress, right in the heart of his territory. I’d lost my ship and I was stowing away aboard a freighter that seemed to be heading the right way. I was sitting in between stacks of grimey crates in the hold of the ship. I didn’t know how I would get off the ship without being found, never mind the rest of my crazy plan. Then you appeared.

“One: I miss you. This sucks,” you said, counting off on your fingers. “Two: When you come back, there’s butt sex in it for you. Three: I’m serious. I’m reading a book. I bought a dildo.”

Three weeks later I was inside Sendak’s fortress. I’d been in zero g without a ship. I’d been in vacuum without a mask. But I made it. I knew where my mom was. I knew how to get to her.

I was hiding in an air shaft when your message came. For the first time, I felt like I was sort of ready for it. You appeared on the inside of my visor with that ominous deadpan face you make, and then something started wiggling into view from below. I nearly yelled when I realized what you were doing, waggling your dildo in front of your face like a veiny silicone snake. Man, it gave me every crazy feeling I have about you all at once. You sexy jackass clown prince with a heart of gold.

I was mesmerized by your snake charming, but you only danced it around for a couple seconds before your expression fell and you dropped it out of frame.

“Aw man, I wish you were here to tell me how stupid that was.”

You looked around the room you were in. Your old room in your parents’ place, it looked like it was nighttime. You were lit in warm light from a desk lamp. Your eyebrows drew together, you were almost scowling. You looked back at the screen and you hung up.

I couldn’t sort through all my feelings after that. Maybe we weren’t in the same universe after all? Was it ok that I didn’t understand how you worked? I crawled through ducts and back corridors and wondered about you. I dodged guards and security sensors. I found the holding cells. I remember thinking it would all be easier when I was flying back to Earth with my mom.

I checked my readouts: only one lifesign, sitting in one cell. Krolia, just like the records said. I opened the door, and my mom wasn’t there, but Sendak was.

A dozen guards rounded the corridor behind me, and that was that. And I thought about how mad you were going to be when you found out I wasn’t coming home.

* * *

Sendak had a lot to say, but I couldn’t focus. I kept thinking about how badly I’d fucked up. I’d gone out of my way to get myself into this unsolvable mess, and now I wasn’t good to anybody.

They locked me in a cell and a moment later I had my one minor miracle. The door opened again and they returned with my mother held between them. She was there and she was alive and she was healthy. Then she saw me. She stared me down like she was trying to melt me with her eyes. They threw her in the cell facing mine. She didn’t talk to me until long after the guards had left.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to save you.”

She didn’t say anything for a while after that, too. I said I was sorry. No reply. We sat in silence for a while and then I decided to just tell her about you.

“We got married,” I said. “He’s really great. I mean, he’s ridiculous. But I love him.”

I babbled about you for a while. I talked about the wedding, and all those ridiculous adventures leading up to it. I told her about your family, and about Cuba, and about our dreams of coffee shops and space exploration and doing laundry together.

“So you really love him?”

“I really do.”

“So you intended to return to him?”

“...yeah.”

“So this wasn’t some stupid suicide mission?”

“No, mom, this was a stupid rescue mission.”

She coughed out a laugh and then we sat in silence.

Our lives as prisoners had a clockwork rhythm. For five days they would leave us alone, feeding us once a day. On the sixth day they would take one of us and we’d spend the day… well… I don’t want to think about it. They had questions. We didn’t have answers. The Blade of Marmora doesn’t share a lot of information with its people for this reason. We told them everything we knew right away. Our codes would be expired. The locations of our bases, out of date. Still, our interrogators seemed desperate to get something out of us. Sendak probably doesn’t like when they show up empty-handed.

We marked time by those visits. My mom would spend the next day talking to me from her cell. Helping me recover. And after she’d had a few turns she let me help her. She told me about my dad. I told her more about you. I think I talked a lot about this fantasy coffee shop we’ll probably never open. But if we do, I have a lot of floor plan ideas.

Our schedule also made something clear: I wasn’t getting any more messages from you. I double checked the hidden panel on the sleeve of my suit. If you’d sent a signal, I would have received it. But you didn’t.

Lance, I love you, I’ll always love you, and I forgive you, but don’t fucking ghost me when I’m in Galra prison, ok?

The weeks wore on. We knew we were being monitored so we couldn’t talk about much. By my count I’d missed at least two messages from you before one came. You appeared all of a sudden, tiny on my arm.

“Lemme hear you say ‘Lance you idiot’!” you hollered.

“Lance!” I said, almost involuntarily. Man, it’s like you boil the blood right out of me, sometimes in the good way, sometimes just… It’s intense.

“Once more with feeling!” you said, enjoying the best joke in the world that only you knew.

“Lance! You idiot!” I said. Maybe my voice broke. “You didn’t call!”

And then, of fucking course, the door whooshed open and there you were. “Sorry! I was driving!”

The best damned entrance, and you know it.

“Pidge, they’re in block 53!”

Pidge? But then the force fields on our cells came down and you were coming at me. You couldn’t hide how upset you were. The silly performance fell away. I saw the tears in your eyes as you pulled me up into your arms.

A flash of white appeared in the door behind you. Shiro! He looked worried, and then relieved. I just felt the bafflement wash over me. I wondered if you’d brought all of Team Voltron with you.

Then we were sprinting down a hallway, and you were back at it. Hammering away with all the crazy exploits you guys took to get to me. I couldn’t follow you. Well, all I could do was follow you. My hand in yours, running.

Then we were stepping into the hangar and there was Pidge and Hunk, and you were all doing this ridiculous “ta da” gesture. And it wasn’t just the gang, it was the damn lions packed into the hangar. Even Black.

“How?” I remember saying.

And you all yelled “Cloaking!”

I was sort of frozen in place. Just trying to process. You and them. You’re all so amazing. I know you know that too.

“We have to move,” said Shiro.

Then it was business. You and your mad genius friends up into your lions. Shiro, my mom and me in Black. Allura already holding down the fort in Blue. We got to work, and it was that magic thing. We linked at the mind, stepped up to the line and fought.

“Keith!”

“Allura!”

“It’s good to have you back!”

“Let’s do this.”

Blasts from Red, taking out the first fighter to make it into the hangar. Your smirk all across my video screen.

Yellow stepping forward, shielding us from the next volley of blasts while we got ready.

Blue darting out into open space, the rest of us following.

Galra ships in wave after wave, flank after flank.

Bolts of energy, like rain all around us.

I looked at you all on the comms screens in Black’s cockpit. Ten minutes earlier I hadn’t seen any of you in months. Hadn’t fought alongside you in longer. Then we were back at it, like slipping on a glove. Hunk, jaw set, concentrating hard. Pidge, already angry and letting the Galra know about it. Allura, righteous and undefeatable. And you. You were so happy you were howling. Nobody’s ever enjoyed piloting as much as you. Nobody enjoys anything you like as much as you.

We swept into the lea of the fortress, we drew their fire. We drew out Sendak in his command ship.

We scattered, we came together.

Then it was time.

“Form Voltron!”

* * *

We all took a breath in the aftermath. Sendak was in retreat, but we knew he’d be back. We knew this rescue mission would be as stupid as mine if we didn’t take our chance and get the hell out.

“Keith, we need to open a wormhole and get back to Earth. But-”

“We need to go into deep synchronization. I know. I’m ready.”

We twisted our bayards and the world fell away again. I was exhausted, but new energy pooled up inside me, carrying me through into the Astral Plane, bringing me back to you. We all stood in our ring of five, but I only saw you.

“I love you,” I said, the words breaking free of me before I could think to say anything else.

You didn’t say anything at first, and we were stuck in our circle of Voltron, unable to move. You took a breath, eyes struggling between exhausted happy relief and pinched pain.

“Keith,” you said. “Never again. The next time you need to go off and put yourself in harm’s way, we go with you. I go with you.”

You looked at me, eyebrows tented up in plaintive need. “Do you understand?”

I thought of you being sucked out an airlock. I thought of you throwing yourself into the path of an explosion to save Coran. You getting shot. Your life in danger. I thought all those things, and I know my thoughts played through your mind. We had no secrets in the deep sync. I looked at your face, at the others’ faces. I felt all your fears echo back. That we could lose each other, and the others we loved on the outside.

“I get it,” I said. “I can’t keep you from risking your life out here with me. And I’ll stop trying. I need you too much anyway.”

We let go of our fears, we reached out to each other, we opened the wormhole and then we were through and there was Earth.

* * *

Anyway, this is what I’ve wanted to tell you. You told me to ask for more towels from the front desk. I guess I was sort of out of it and you asked what was on my mind. This is what’s been on my mind. You. Us. How does it make any sense? That’s what’s on my mind. All of this.

Anyway, I went and got your damned extra towels. I’m sure the guy at the front desk… well, he’s probably guessed exactly why I wanted them. Why do I care? I’m probably never going to be in this particular Holiday Inn ever again. I might never even be in Atlanta again. But here we are. It’s not the penthouse. It’s not Cuba. But it doesn’t matter.

This is our first stop-over since we landed on Earth and traded the cockpits of lions for seats on a commuter flight. Everyone else can continue on to debrief in Geneva or wherever. We’ll catch up. I just needed to get away with you.

I’m grateful to Shiro for at least acting like he bought our terrible cover story. Or maybe you really do want to visit the Coca-Cola Museum? Ha. I hadn’t thought of that. Oh well, in the meantime, I’m about to take you to bed.

You left the door open. You’re nude. Why can’t you just… I… love it. Of course you left the door open a crack. Of course you’re naked, with your ass just there, like you’re presenting.

I should be saying something. But I don’t trust myself. I’m talking to you here instead. I’ll try to keep my words in my head. I want to tell you everything by touch.

I’m closing the door. You might be an exhibitionist, but I’m not.

My shirt goes on the floor. My belt flies loose. I pull my legs out of my jeans. You look over at me.

“Get over here.”

My stupid socks come off. You laugh at me. I blush.

“Fuck off,” I’m smiling.

I’m at the edge of the bed. My fingers are caught on the elastic of my briefs, frozen. My thighs press up against the softness of the mattress. You’re already nude. We’re here for this, but really, can I do this? Can I manage not to fuck up?

You scissor your legs around to pivot your top half in my direction in one fluid move. I feel dizzy. The sexy no-clothes version of you... How are you like this?

“Can I?” you ask, reaching your hands over mine, hooked between my fingers and my hips.

“Yes”

You pull my briefs down a bit, my hands fall away. You run one hand over my cock, already impatiently hard. You palm it through fabric and then flip your hand inside, easing me out of my briefs. You cup my back with your other hand and pull me towards you and I stumble onto the bed. You stroke me as I breath out and in. I pull my briefs off. I’m here. I give up. I let myself win.

You keep looking at me. You fold up onto your heels and kiss up my chest, looking at me. You flick your tongue over my nipple, and you’re watching me. You pull my cock up away from my belly and bring the head into your mouth and still, your eyes are watching. I feel like I can hear you. Maybe you can hear me too. You’re saying, “Show me how it feels when I do this.”

It’s so fucking intense. It’s like you’re learning how to play an instrument. Like you’re finding my strings and drawing a bow across them, each deeper than the last, octave by octave, down down down. A thrill literally vibrates through me.

My dick disappears into your mouth. You’re moving and the feeling it’s… it’s becoming a problem. Your left hand finds my nipple. The problem’s more urgent now. Lance, this is the good kind of problem, but… ha. I can’t even think.

“Ok,” I think I say out loud. Too much! Hang on! You somehow manage to make a joke at me just with your eyes and pull your mouth off my cock like... ng.. Ok. My vision clears.

I need to do this to you. I need to bring the you out of you like you’ve done to me. I run hands down your sides, feeling again your shapes. Now you’re my instrument, and I’m the novice musician. Your curves and swells. Your valleys and ridges. They all imply intent and purpose. You have to be shaped this way to be you. I pull at your hips experimentally, feeling a thrill just that I can lift them, that you fit into my hands. Your stomach. I need to touch it. I touch it. It trembles and subsides under my palm. I kiss it. I can’t pull my eyes away to see how you react. I just need to see you. I’m entranced.

I take you into my mouth. I love your cock. It’s easy. It’s part of you. I take you all the way into my mouth and hear you say some quiet non-words. This is good. This heat and sound. I feel like maybe I could just keep doing this, so I do. You’re getting louder. Or maybe everything else is getting quieter.

“Fuck me,” you say, urgently, between gasps. Like it’s an emergency.

I pause. Did I just nod? In the weird moment we look at each other. It feels like we’re drunk. We exchange woozy smiles. I hitch your ass into my hands, you raise your legs. We know what we want, and we’re not going to rush it and we’re not going to hurt each other. I start to touch you, your outrageous bubble of an ass. I move my hand in. I feel you where you’re warmer and darker and most secret. I’m watching your face. I’m learning how this works.

I touch. I massage. I learn. I can always use more lube. And I can always use more time. To my surprise, I start to lick you. And I learn even more. Bit by bit, you relax to me. You open to me. I love every bit of it, and every new bit even more.

Instead of instruments, I’m thinking about summer by the lake. When I was little I used to be obsessed with fireworks. They set them off on a barge out in the lake, and I wanted so much to see them up close. I even tried swimming out to the barge once but my dad stopped me.

All my life I’ve been trying to understand that feeling. And it’s put me in the pilot’s seat and it put me in harm’s way. I guess I wanted to make sparks.

And through every great and awful thing, every stupid hurdle and amazing surprise, it’s brought me to you. And it’s brought me here, between your legs, completely in love. I can’t believe this feeling. I never knew I could do this to you. That you had this hidden self for me to unlock. You’re not a violin. You’re packed full of black powder. You’re moaning like I’ve never heard. You’re seeing me like I’ve never been seen. I’m inside you deeper and different and more and you’re just made with infinite depths, packed so tight. You had this wick within you all this time, and I’m setting you alight.

Fireworks.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [redlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redlight/pseuds/redlight) and [Abyssiniana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abyssiniana/pseuds/Abyssiniana) for giving me lots of help back when I was putting this together!


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